Video documents coded in the form of digital data offer numerous processing possibilities.
The invention relates more particularly to the delayed reading of data recorded on a recording medium, which consists in recording a program on a recording medium in a file, while simultaneously reading out this program with a certain delay. This application allows the user to suspend the readout of the program when he so wishes and to resume readout from where he halted it.
The known devices, in particular devices of digital television decoder type, making it possible to implement methods of delayed readout exhibit numerous drawbacks.
Among these known devices, some of them propose methods in which the quantity of storage resources that is allocatable to a file other than the delayed readout file depends on the other applications performed by the device. This gives rise to numerous drawbacks:
On the one hand, the delayed reading file can no longer harness new resources to continue the storage of data.
On the other hand, the storage capacity allocated to the delayed reading method being uncontrolled, it is possible that this method may occupy too big a quantity of storage data of the decoder, thus generating malfunctions of the latter, for example to perform other applications unable to access a required-storage capacity.
Additionally, when the delayed reading method is used simultaneously with other applications requiring data storage, the management of the storage space allocated to each application proves to be complex and difficult. Specifically, an optimal allocation of cells to a file allocates successive cells, in particular so as to limit the movements of the head.
Other known methods of delayed reading use management of circular buffers. Such management of buffers gives rise to disorderly storage of the data.